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Alzheimer's disease is a progressive neurologic disease that causes the brain to shrink and die eventually. It is one of the most common diseases in older adults. Alzheimer's disease affects your thinking, behavioural and social skills that affect a person's ability to perform day to day activities. The initial signs of the disease include forgetting recent events or conversations. With time, the condition gets worse and you lose the ability to carry out daily tasks. Brain changes that occur in this condition can affect moods and behaviours, some changes in your personality that occur include depression, social withdrawal, mood swings, irritability, aggressiveness, changes in sleeping habits, and loss of inhibitions.
While there is no treatment available to cure Alzheimer's disease, you can slow down its progression with medication and exercise. A new study has found that doing aerobics regularly may slow memory loss in older adults with Alzheimer's disease and dementia.
Aerobics include exercises like swimming, cycling, walking, jogging and dancing. For this study, they randomized the participants in either cycling or stretching intervention for 6 months. Stretching and cycling are two of the best exercises that offer amazing health benefits.
The study published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease has found that aerobic exercise may help reduce cognitive decline in older adults. As per the findings, a 6 months aerobic exercise intervention can lower cognitive decline compared to the natural course of changes for Alzheimer's dementia. Researcher Fang Yu from Arizona State University said, "Aerobic exercise has a low profile of adverse events in older adults with Alzheimer's dementia as demonstrated by our trial." He further explained that the current evidence suggests that aerobic exercise can be used as an additional therapy for Alzheimer's disease.
For the study, the research team included 96 older adults in a randomized control trial with mild to moderate Alzheimer's dementia. After assessing cognition with the help of Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale Cognition (ADAS-Cog), they found that the results were substantial. However, the researchers didn't find a greater effect of aerobic exercise on stretching.
As mentioned, aerobics is good for people with Alzheimer's dementia patients, but did you know its benefits aren't limited to that? From easing symptoms of depression and anxiety to keeping your memory sharp, here are many psychological benefits of exercise you should know.